Following the success of the opendata.swiss portal, launched in 2016, the 2024 deadline required a solution to be found to safeguard its long-term future. The contract with its service provider was running out, making it essential that plans for transitioning to a new solution be put in place. These plans needed to ensure the continuity of service of the portal, while also facilitating its evolution to respond to future challenges in relation to open data and remaining fully aligned with users’ needs.
An innovative approach
After an intensive period of study and drafting, the OGD Office proposed a new approach in its project study ‘Call for public tenders for the implementation of an innovative solution based on an RDF store[1]’. This option proposed a system that applies web semantics, allowing its metadata to be more easily identifiable and linkable to others. The open data referenced via this metadata is therefore more readily accessible, which is a key advantage.
In response to this proposal and in order to study synergies and gain an overview of all existing portals, the FSO Directorate created an internal working group to evaluate the future of the office’s metadata portals.
The OGD Office team presented a win/win solution to the members of this group: swiftly implement a new system for opendata.swiss based on an RDF store and allow the I14Y team to test it, then gradually add its own metadata and functions if persuaded by the test results. This bold proposal was accepted, and a strategic vision for 2030 was drawn up.
The SFO metadata vision for 2030: a strategy of unprecedented cooperation
This ambitious vision marks a break with traditional approaches, with a shared technological basis for the management of the Confederation’s metadata. Among other features, it includes a backend[2] shared between opendata.swiss and I14Y and metadata stored in an RDF store that is internal to the Confederation, i.e. the LINDAS store, made available by the Swiss Federal Archives.
It also provided for the FSO, the Swiss Federal Archives and the Federal Office for the Environment to issue a joint call for tenders to find providers that can ensure the continued delivery of their respective services (opendata.swiss, LINDAS and Visualize). This involves not just developing an innovative, high-performance system, but also making proposals for collaboration and new synergies between three offices.
The metadata.swiss project: towards a unified platform
This innovative and ambitious vision was presented in summer 2023 to a wider circle of decision-makers, including the FSO Directorate, the FDHA General Secretariat and Digital Public Services Switzerland. It was met with enthusiasm and unanimously approved. The project to implement an innovative new solution capable of tapping the full potential of open data could then be officially launched at last.
The FSO thus kicked off the metadata.swiss project, formalising the ties between opendata.swiss and I14Y.ch, in 2025. A joint project team made up of the OGD Office and Interoperability Office is tasked with bringing it to fruition. The final objective is a unified platform that is compatible with European standards, simplifies the management of metadata and eases the administrative burden through the ‘once only’ principle.
[1] RDF store (or triplestore): A purpose-built database for the storage and retrieval of RDFs (resource description frameworks).
[2] Backend: The backend is the part of an application that executes the various tasks that the application is designed for. It is not accessible to users.
Find out more
To gain a fuller understanding of opendata.swiss, we invite you to read the stories relating its origins, legal framework and operational structure. Each of these stories sheds light on a different aspect of the project, and you can read them in any order you choose.
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